Rise of the superathlete: altered genes could lead to gigantic football players, towering basketball centers, and huge risks. (sports).

Shaquille O'Neal could someday be the puniest player on the court. The dawning era of genetic engineering is scaring the sports world, leading to visions of 9-foot-tall basketball centers, turbo-charged sprinters, double-size football linemen, and a Tiger Woods who would never grow old.

Those are fantastic examples, but superathletes may be on the horizon. They would be genetically altered to exceed our wildest expectations, to run faster, jump higher, and throw farther. Some scientists and Olympic officials believe it may only be a decade away. Still others believe crude experiments might already be under way.

This artificial evolution could permanently change sports, whether we want it to or not. "It is supposed to be a test of human capability, not a chemical war or a genetic war," says Brandi Chastain of the U.S. women's soccer team.

The science fiction is closer to reality thanks to the mapping of the human genome, which has given scientists a better idea of which genes do what. The driving force in research has been better health care. Injecting modified genetic material into patients could one day allow faster recovery from disease or let someone in a wheelchair walk again. "Those with terminal cancer and AIDS want to know, `What will keep me alive?'" says Dr. Nadia Rosenthal of Harvard Medical School. "Athletes want to know, `What will make me win?'"

SO MANY QUESTIONS

The World Anti-Doping Agency, which is affiliated with the International Olympic Committee, will discuss gene alteration at a meeting in late September, hoping to nip the issue in the bud and figure out policies. Officials face a number of ethical questions, including a big one: What is a human athlete?

"What are the endpoints of manipulation?" asks Dr. Theodore Friedmann, director of gene therapy at the University of California at San Diego and a member of the antidoping agency. "Is the hope to incrementally sneak up on the 1 1/2-minute mile? Or six seconds for 100 meters? Is the question, How fully can we engineer the human body to do physically impossible things? If it is, what do you have at the end of that? Something that looks like a human, but is so engineered, so tuned, that it's no longer going to do what the body is designed to do?"

Changing how the body works starts a snowballing of health risks, from malfunctioning muscles to death. Some sports stars, including sprinter Michael Johnson, say the risks would scare them away.

Yet athletes have a track record for risk-taking. There is enormous financial pressure and reward to win. In a 1995 survey, nearly 200 aspiring U.S. Olympians were asked if they would take a banned substance that would guarantee victory in every competition for five years and would then cause death; more than half answered yes.

A recent seminar on teen steroid use, held in New York City, revealed these desperate efforts to boost athletic performance: A female basketball player asked a doctor to break her arms and reset them in a way that might make them longer; pediatricians were being pressured by parents to give their children human-growth hormone to make them taller and perhaps more athletic; parents of football players asked doctors to provide steroids so their sons might gain college scholarships.

MUSCLE MICE

So far, mice are the ones taking the risks. A study by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard put altered genes in mice to halt the depletion of muscle and strength that comes with old age. Older mice increased their muscle strength by as much as 27 percent, which suggested possibilities for athletes as well as for preserving muscle strength in elderly people and increasing muscle power in those who suffer from muscular dystrophy.

"We called them Schwarzenegger mice," says Rosenthal, a co-author of the study.

The danger is that what works with mice might not work the same way in humans. Dr. Thomas Murray, president of the Hastings Center, a biomedical ethics research institute, says genetic engineering is like firing at the bull's-eye of a target with a spray of shotgun pellets. It is not known exactly where the gene goes when injected or what the body's immune response will be.

If something goes wrong, the consequences can be fatal. A teenager died in 1999 during a therapeutic study at the University of Pennsylvania, apparently in reaction to the virus carrying genes intended to treat a metabolic disorder.

If the health risks don't deter athletes, gene testing might. Werner Franke, a German molecular biologist, says he's not particularly worried about genetic engineering because officials could detect athletes who were doing it, as in a drug test.

"I think it will be mostly science fiction," Franke says. He accuses the International Olympic Committee of "purposely barking up the wrong tree" in an attempt to camouflage its lack of commitment to catching athletes who cheat by conventional methods. Many scientists, though, say altered genes would be difficult to detect.

DNA AND THE AMERICAN WAY

Though athletes, scientists, and sports officials are coming down hard against genetic tampering, American society tolerates other types of enhancement, from the caffeine stimulation of soda to breast enlargement. There was mass celebration when Mark McGwire broke baseball's home-run record in 1998 using androstenedione, a substance banned in the Olympics and in many pro sports.

"Nobody cared about what McGwire was using," says Jon Drummond, a gold-medal winner in track at last year's Olympic Games. "They just wanted to see him break the record."

To alter or not to alter may be up to each athlete. "The argument in favor of allowing people to do this is based on our American tradition of giving individuals a huge amount of autonomy over their own bodies," says Dr. Eric Juengst, an ethicist at Case Western Reserve University.

Moral limits will inevitably clash with a desire to break athletic limits. Anyone who could run 100 meters in six seconds "has no place in sports," says U.S. sprinter Maurice Greene, the world record-holder at 9.79 seconds. But, he adds, "If anyone can run the 100 in six seconds, I'd like to see it."

Playing With Genes

Scientists can't say for sure what will happen if and when athletes
experiments with adding genes to boost their abilities. The altered
DNA could augment their bodies for an unbeatable edge, or wreak
incurable havoc on them. Here are some of the theories.

ALTERED GENE         BEST CASE               WORST CASE

better fast-twitch   a cheetah-like          body's immune system
muscle fibers in     sprinter, an            attacks added genes,
thighs               uncatchable running     leading to organ
                     back                    shutdowns and death

muscle mass that     athletes who don't      muscles that balloon
continues to grow    slow down, wear out,    unabated, dangerously
and repair itself    or need to retire       enlarged heart muscle

increased output     enhanced endurance      excess cells that lead
of red blood cells   for distance runners    to strokes or heart
                     and cyclists            attacks

souped-up shoulder   pitcher with 110-mph    crippling stress on
muscle               fastball, quarterback   tendons and bone
                     who can throw 200       structure that can't
                     yards                   accommodate stronger
                                             muscle

adding wings,        new records and         the end of old-fashioned
extra legs           sports beyond what      human athletes
                     we can now imagine